Hello! Today we’re going to cover steps 12-16 of our bag instructions, plus we're going to make casings for the bag handles. Are you ready?

To start, grab one of your lining pieces and place it on the bag. To that end, align the top edge of one side the bag with the top edge of the lining, right sides together. Here I will sew the lining piece that has the pocket with the back of the bag. That is just my personal preference and you can do it any way you want.

Stitch the bag and the lining together, like this.

Press the seam towards the lining. Then turn over the bag to the right side and edgestitch the lining very close to the seam, like this.

Take some time to admire your professional work. :-)

Repeat all these steps with the other piece of lining and attach it to the other side of the bag. We are not going to sew the linings yet... First we're going to make the casings for the handles. We're going to start with one side of the bag first. Place the bag pattern piece #2 on the wrong side of your bag and mark the location of the fold of the casing with disappearing ink.

Also, use 2 pins to mark the location of the casing seam.

Now fold so that the pins meet.

The casing should be 1 1/2" wide. Unfortunately, this is too wide for me to be able to use my magnetic seam guide on my sewing machine. But here's a little trick: Place a ruler in the middle of your presser foot and measure 1 1/2" from there. Use a post-it note to mark this distance...

... and use that post-it note as a seam guide.

Repeat these same steps on the other side of the bag and now are casings are done!

Now we're going to sew the lining. Pin the two lining pieces, right sides together...

...and stitch. Remember to leave an opening on the bottom so you can turn the bag inside out!

Turn the bag inside out and slipstitch the opening in the lining to close it. Look how nice it looks! Of course, now the lining is outside, so When you're done push it in to turn the bag inside out again.

Now we need to take care of those seam allowances. They need to be closed in order to finish the bag. I'm not sure if you can see where those red arrows point, if you can't click on the picture to see a larger version. This is a problem because those inner seams are way too high for me to be able to even open the bag once it's ready. So I whipped up my seam ripper (see now where the name of my blog comes from??) and opened those seams until they matched the outer ones (marked with a green arrow).

Now you will have to slipstitch the front seam allowance to the back seam allowance on each side. You will have to do this twice per side, beginning at the bottom of the casing. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture during the process, but hopefully this photo will help you get an idea of what the final product looks like. Do you see the area marked by the green arrow? That is a stress point in this bag. This means that the fabric may tear from opening the bag too many times, so you will need to handstitch this area over and over a few times to reinforce it and prevent tearing.

Yay! You're done with the body of the bag! Now let's install those handles. Slide them through those awesome casings you just sewed.

Now glue them back with a tiny bit of glue. My favorite is Gorilla Glue, but there are other glues you can use as well. If you use Gorilla remember that a tiny bit goes a long way! So go easy. Once you put glue on the handles you can use some painter's tape as a clamp. Wrap it tight around the whole handle as well as the opening. After a few hours, the glue is dry and the handles are ready to go! Slide the glued portion of the handle back inside the casing so it will be out of sight.

And we're done!! Now go ahead and make yourself a nice bag.

I really hope you found this tutorial useful. Don't forget to leave me any comments, questions, etc. I would love to hear how your bag turned out!

Hi everyone! Today we’re going to cover steps 9-11 of the bag instructions. I would like to apologize in advance that my pics are a little smaller today, Blogger is just not cooperating! :-(

Fold your pocket (pattern piece 3) in half crosswise, right sides together, and stitch. You need to leave an opening on the bottom in order to turn the pocket inside out later. My opening is about 3-4 inches long and I marked it with red arrows. The pattern doesn't tell you to do this, but clip the corners before turning the pocket, like I did, to reduce bulk! The black arrows show you how I clipped the corners. Do NOT cut through your stitches! :-)

Turn the pocket right side out and use a pointy instrument to push the corners out. At this point the pattern instructs you to slipstitch the opening, but you don't need to do this! You will close the opening when you attach the pocket to the lining. I'll show you how to do this when we get to that step. Turn in the seam allowance from the opening and press your pocket really well.

Now you need to mark and make the darts. Place your pattern piece on the pocket and use pins to mark the location of the darts on the pocket.

Lift the pattern piece and mark the holes made by the pins with disappearing ink.

To make the darts, connect the two bottom markings of each dart and fold as I show you below. Pin the darts. The pattern tells you to stitch the darts but I opted not to do that.

Now place pattern piece 4 (lining) on the right side of one of your lining pieces. Those three circles at the top show you where the pocket should be placed. Mark the pocket placement with pins and disappearing ink just like you did with the pocket darts.

Remove pattern piece 4 and pin the pocket to the lining. As you can see I goofed and placed the darts on the right instead of on the left. No biggie.

Starting on the top right side of the pocket, stitch it all around the sides and the bottom. You obviously don't stitch it on the top, otherwise you wouldn't have a pocket! :-) As you stitch, you will also close the opening, so you kill two birds with a stone.

Now you need to stitch from top to bottom to make two compartments in the pocket. To make sure that this seam is straight, press the centermost dart fold down and pin it near the top of the pocket. Now take a look at the red arrow. I aligned the right side of my presser foot with this fold. Stitch close to the fold all the way to the bottom of the pocket.

This is how your pocket looks after you're done. Isn't it pretty?

I tried to be as clear as possible, but I may have goofed somewhere, so please ask me any questions!